


half a step at a time

by paradoxikay



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: ADHD, Anxiety, Gen, Non-Binary Noctis, Other, Trans Prompto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 13:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11186508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradoxikay/pseuds/paradoxikay
Summary: He has days when he can’t drag himself out of bed. But he has people who will do the dragging for him, metaphorically speaking. He has a job to do, somewhere to be. People to care for, to protect.It’s not the future he ever imagined. But it’s something.Short glimpses at how Prompto puzzles out his identity and how to deal with his Weird Brain Shit™, always with his friends at his side.





	half a step at a time

**Author's Note:**

> **Potential trigger warning:** Prompto refers to himself with she/her pronouns in a scene where he hasn't figured out yet that he's trans.
> 
> Written for the FFXV Kink Meme, for the following prompt:
> 
> Prompto is pretty heavily ADHD-coded and I'd like to see something that addresses it! Maybe he hasn't been diagnosed because his parents are never around to take him to a doctor, or maybe he dutifully takes his meds every day because he has them meticulously slotted into his morning routine. 
> 
> Could be pre-trip, Prompto struggling with it in school or the ways that ADHD makes a trip involving fighting for your life even more difficult. I'm absolutely not picky about the details here so long as it features Prompto struggling/dealing with his obvious ADHD.
> 
> \+ Gen or AnyBro/Prompto, though I'm most partial to Noctis/Prompto!  
> ++ Noctis knowing he has it and being super supportive/helpful would be A++  
> +++ if you somehow manage to throw in Noctis with Inattentive type or acknowledged depression then all the better tbh;;
> 
> OP also requested trans Prompto and/or Noctis, and how could I say no? <3

She has a routine - sort of.  
  
(It feels _weird_ , still, even after months of trying to settle into it. But it works, kind of, which is probably the important part.)  
  
Her alarm goes off half an hour before she really needs to be up, because it takes about that long to make her brain and limbs work together to get her out of bed. By the time she’s up her second alarm is going off, the one that sounds like someone shaking a bottle of pills. “Yeah, yeah,” she tells it through a yawn, fumbling around on the nightstand for the bottle of water and little weekly pill case that are always there. Ignis calls her on Sunday nights, reminds her to set up the next week’s meds because she’d totally forget otherwise.  
  
(Iggy was the first person to ever tell her that there might be a fix for the constant buzz of nervous energy, the way sitting still and quiet at her desk made her want to rip his own skin off. The second person was a very nice woman she later learned was Noct’s personal psychiatrist. That’s another thing she’s still trying to get used to - that when you’re the Crown Prince, you can apparently just loan out your personal private doctors to your friends like it’s no big deal.  
  
But feeling like she doesn’t deserve Noct’s kindness is another thing she _doesn’t have to feel_. Sometimes, on her good days, she really doesn’t.)  
  
She takes her meds, the delicate balance that mostly ( _mostly_ ) keeps the ADHD meds from making her panicky and the panic meds from making her sleepy. Then she drags herself out of bed to get dressed, because she can’t eat breakfast until half an hour after she takes her Ritalin. Or at least, she tries to start getting dressed. Usually she ends up staring blankly at her open closet for a while, overwhelmed by just how many steps it takes to get ready, until the meds kick in and it gets a little easier to focus. There are still a lot of steps, but she can remember them, and tick each one off in order; _underwear. Bra. Blouse. Soul-crushing sense of self-loathing. Skirt. Blazer. Tie. Socks._  
  
(Her therapist tells her it’s completely normal to have so much anxiety about going to school. That it will get better. Prompto doesn’t know how to tell her that it doesn’t feel like anxiety at all, that nothing else makes her feel as innately _wrong_ as putting on her school uniform, tugging at her blouse until her boobs don’t really show.  
  
When everything else is getting so much better, the things that haven’t changed at all feel so much worse.)  
  
\--  
  
They have a routine for when Prompto stays over at Noct’s place - which is almost all the time, these days. He stops by his own house mostly just to pick up the mail. He thinks he’d probably stay there if his parents were home, but that hasn’t happened since he and Noct started for-realsies dating, so it’s kind of a moot point.  
  
Both of their alarms go off at the same time. Noct pulls the blankets over their head and curls up in a little ball, like the alarm’s a threat and they have to protect their vital organs. Prompto shuts his alarm off, and shoves Noct’s phone under the covers with them on his way to the kitchen, laughing at the pitiful little noise they always make.   
  
(He never officially moved in, really. It just kind of happened, bit by bit, until suddenly he didn’t have to worry about not having clean clothes to wear in the morning and Iggy was filling two pill boxes on Thursday nights.   
  
It’s a weird feeling, walking into the kitchen and seeing his meds sitting next to Noct’s on the counter, like they belong there. Noct keeps telling him they do belong there. Prompto’s not sure he’ll ever be able to believe that, but it’s sweet of Noct to try.)  
  
He’s not really any more awake than Noct is, but it’s easier, somehow, to get himself moving when it’s someone else he’s taking care of. Sure, he takes his empty-stomach meds while he’s in the kitchen, but he probably wouldn’t bother if he didn’t have to grab Noct’s meds and a meal-replacement shake out of the fridge. It’s never easy to get going in the mornings, but Noct makes it just a little easier.  
  
Noct makes a lot of things just a little easier.  
  
Their alarm’s still going off when Prompto comes back to the bedroom, and they’ve wrapped themself up tight in the blankets. The Noct-shaped blanket lump makes a different kind of pitiful noise when Prompto prods what looks like a shoulder, then slowly uncurls, scowling at a point just above Prompto’s shoulder when their face emerges from the cocoon.   
  
“Good morning!” Prompto says.  
  
“Mmmph,” says Noctis, but they hold out their hand for their meds anyway, so Prompto considers his mission a success.  
  
Just like Noct makes it easier for Prompto to get out of bed, Prompto seems to make it easier for Noct to do the same. By the time Noct’s managed to drag themself upright Prompto’s Ritalin is kicking in, so he gets to do the executive functioning for both of them, gently nudging Noct through their morning routine.   
  
“Hey,” Noct says, softly, once they’re dressed. They make grabby hands towards Prompto, and, grinning, Prompto interlaces his fingers with theirs, lets them pull him back towards the bed until they’ve both collapsed into a pile of good-morning cuddles.  
  
It’s still hard to get things done, sometimes. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and Iggy or Noct or Gladio have to push him along step by step, because he can only figure out how to do one part of a thing at a time. But he knows how to ask for their help, now, and knows that they’ll give it. He can sit still for longer than three minutes without wanting to crawl out of his skin. He hasn’t had to take his panic attack meds in… he’s stopped keeping track, and he doesn’t quite feel at home in his body but at least he knows _why_.  
  
And he has Noct.  
  
“Love you,” he murmurs into Noct’s hair, suddenly utterly overwhelmed by just how _true_ that is, and Noctis laughs, and leans up to kiss him, and whispers “love you too” against his lips.  
  
\--  
  
Everything kind of goes to hell as soon as they leave Insomnia.  
  
Not just the obvious stuff, either. Actually, it’s hard to focus on the obvious stuff. Prompto knows he _should_ feel _something_ about everything that’s happening, but he can’t quite manage to get anywhere near the subject of current events. It’s like there’s a locked door in his brain, him on one side and everything that’s going on on the other, and he’s secretly grateful that he doesn’t have the key, because if he did he’s pretty sure he’d just start crying and never stop.  
  
He does more than enough of that as it is. For a week or so he’s absolutely miserable, focus razor-sharp but nothing to focus _on_ except how fast his heart’s beating and the feeling of impending doom that’s almost a physical weight on his shoulders. It’s Iggy who realizes what the problem is - the precarious balance of meds that’s worked for a year now can’t stand up against the situation he’s found himself in, and it’s not like he can just go see his psychiatrist and get them sorted out.   
  
(It’s not like his psychiatrist is even still alive.   
  
He spends two days with that thought echoing in his head, over and over, like the world’s worst Top 40 earworm.)  
  
He can’t see his psychiatrist, but he’s got Iggy, and Iggy has the Internet, and they figure something out, sort of. It’s not a very good “something”, but at least once he stops taking Ritalin Prompto stops feeling like some terrible, indescribable Bad Thing will happen the second he lets his guard down, and Iggy stops looking quite so worried every time he takes Prompto’s pulse. The trade-off is that he’s every bit as jittery either way, and what he gains in peace of mind, or some pathetic facsimile thereof, he loses in forgetting how to accomplish even the most basic tasks. Everything is a struggle, and _everything_ is a distraction. Is this how it used to be? How did he ever function like this?   
  
It’s okay, sort of, for a while. Iggy and Gladio talk him through chores, and Noct likes it when he drums his fingers restlessly against their ribs when the two of them cuddle at night - says it feels nice.   
  
It’s okay, until they’re facing off against a squad of MT assholes, and Noct yells for a distraction, and Prompto _forgets how to move_.  
  
Camp’s not a fun place to be that night. They eat in tense silence, and then he hides in the tent with Noct while Gladio and Iggy argue. He tries to make out what they’re saying for a while, but then he catches Gladio saying something about how “he’s a liability, Ignis!” and his breath catches in his chest. He cries himself to sleep that night, sprawled on top of his sleeping bag with Noct curled, catlike, against his side, protecting the guy who’s supposed to protect _them_.  
  
He starts taking the Ritalin again after that.  
  
Ignis doesn’t say a word.  
  
\--  
  
And then… then there’s the Dark.  
  
There’s the day his meds run out, and there’s nowhere to get more.  
  
There’s the day his period kicks back in and, aggravated by the shift in hormones or maybe just to spite him, lasts for three fucking weeks.   
  
There’s all the days where he can’t even figure out the steps to getting out of bed, so he just stays there, staring at the wall, snippets of self-loathing on endless repeat in his head.  
  
But there’s also the day Gladio sits down with him and reminds him how to breathe, walking him through the steps his therapist taught him what feels like an eternity ago.   
  
The day Ignis helps him put together a schedule, every hour of every day planned out in advance, so he always has something to nudge him in the right direction.  
  
He picks up running again, burning off nervous energy instead of body fat. Finds a place in a group of Hunters who don’t mind breaking things down into tiny steps for him if it means having his guns on their side. Learns to take deep breaths and focus on the present when sheer terror threatens to overwhelm him.  
  
Days turn to weeks, months, years. He adapts, just like everyone else. Struggles, often, but everyone else is struggling too, and that’s a strange sort of comfort.  
  
He still has days when he can’t drag himself out of bed. But he has people who will do the dragging for him, metaphorically speaking. He has a job to do, somewhere to be. People to care for, to protect.  
  
It’s not the future he ever imagined, curled up in bed with Noct, giggling over daydreams of being Prince Consort. But it’s something.  
  
He adapts. He survives. And though he can’t keep himself from crying with the first blinding light of a sunrise he thought he’d never see, they’re bittersweet tears, shed in mourning and gratitude both.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback of all kinds is very welcome! You can also find me on Tumblr at [aneroticporkcutletbowl](http://aneroticporkcutletbowl.tumblr.com).


End file.
